


Inside Out

by goldenslumber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenslumber/pseuds/goldenslumber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rebellion ends all the same, but with one difference: Aerys burned King's Landing to ash. Jaime survives maimed and his father pulls him from the Kingsguard just as much as Robert refuses him a spot, arranging the heir of Casterly Rock a marriage to the straggling daughter of Evenfall Hall, Brienne of Tarth, and ends up turning both of their worlds inside out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Little Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not sure about this fic. I feel uncertain about this chapter and the writing and I almost don't want to post it. But I'm going to do so and just see the reaction. I might drop this fic. I do have school and a job and family, but if someone likes it enough I'll soldier on. If not, please say so, and I will toss it. Sorry for typos – I edit it amiably, but sometimes I miss spots. First Jaime/Brienne multi-chapter. Wish me luck.

  
The newly constructed timber hall was huge, fully eighty feet end to end and twenty broad, per His Grace's request. Doors leading to the outside pierced both of the long walls midway down their length, allowing people exit to the latrines, or to the kitchens for more food, while trapdoors in the sixty-foot high-beamed roof allowed smoke egress when weather permitted; otherwise the fumes from the well-stocked hearths drifted about the hall until they escaped whenever someone opened an outer door.  
  
Many of the hall’s upright timbers were painted the Baratheon colors; gold and black in interweaving designs. The heights were hung with almost one hundred shields, those of the men who died for the rebellion, heroes and knights, and whom will be sung for. Tonight, both painted designs and shields were muffled somewhat, by strung Lannister crimson, visible in equal parts as Baratheon stags. The hall was full of smoke, heat, and raucous, good-humored noise. Men and women, warriors and priests, lords, wives, and maidens sat at the trestle tables, which ran the length of the hall, while thralls, children, and hounds scampered about, either serving wine, cider, or ale, or nosing out the scraps of meat that had fallen to the rush-covered floor.  
  
Jaime could have sworn he still smelt the ashes from his seat on the royal dais. But that was over with, months gone. There was a new King's Landing now, built by the new king, and everyone was eager to forget the mass grave their new capitol settled above. No one wanted to remember the sight of the ancient landing up in flames, the twisting green inferno licking on the horizon. A mad king's last spiteful act. Common folk screaming, burning. Flames leaping from the windows of the Red Keep, as if birds with burning wings, reaching, grasping, their talons scarlet and emerald, eating away the life.  
  
 _Eating away flesh,_  Jaime thought, flexing his sword hand. Still, even after such time, a pain laced up his arm, following the ravished path of uneven scars. Wild fire left such pestering burns. He could almost sympathize with the Hound, seeing as he knew what it was to be devoured by flames. The white cloak had done nothing to protect him; it was the reason the fire got him, flaring to life the instant it whisked over the stones of the battlements. He'd ran, of course. It had made the situation worse.  
  
“Dear brother, your scowling is scaring all the serving wenches off.” Tyrion thumped his empty wine cup onto the table and sighed thoughtfully. “Or, at least, the attractive ones. How do you expect me to charm them with my words and mind, if you do not first draw them over with that most fortunate face of yours?”  
  
Jaime manged a smile; he'd not realized he'd been glowering at his platter for the past half hour. “What ever would you do without me?”  
  
“Perish the thought. Lannisters are exceedingly hard to kill, you know.”  
  
“Me, certainly. You.. not so much.”   
  
Tyrion took on affront. “You doubt my finesse, brother? Perhaps I will show you how well I am at swords.”   
  
“We could go to the yard, now, if you'd like. I hear it is quite grand.”  
  
“Yard? No. I was speaking of a different sword. One that requires feather beds and soft pillows.”  
  
Jaime laughed. “I do not doubt that. You've had much practice. More than me.”  
  
The Imp's face spread into a warm smile. “So he  _can_  still laugh.”  
  
That put a dapper on Jaime's mood, if there was ever anything the matter. “What do you mean?”  
  
“Don't play games with me. I've heard your and father's fights. Not to mention Cersei's screeching. I am sure everyone from here to the Wall heard that argument the two of you had at Casterly Rock before we made for new King's Landing.”  
  
 _She_  had  _screamed shrilly,_  Jaime thought, turning his eyes his twin's way. In contrast to the wild enthusiasm of the hundreds of guests within the body of the hall, most of the fifteen or so people who sat at the table on the dais with Jaime were noticeably restrained. The king being an exception. At the center His Grace sat, his black hair tussled as ever. Cersei was a gem at his side, perfect, golden haired and green eyed, her wedding dress a masterpiece of silk and cloth of gold, embroidered in black gems; the Baratheon colors, to match her new cloak.   
  
Once, Jaime might have been confident that cloak would be Lannister crimson forever. He would give her his cloak, and they would be united, two lions, identical, in sync. Cersei would be his, body and soul. But her smile was unrestrained, her happiness, success..  _beauty_ , untouched.  
  
Unconsciously, Jaime lifted his ruined hand and fingered the side of his neck where a trickle of a scar slipped from the bottom of his jaw, over a shoulder, then spilled and spread down his back; a place he knew was covered in weeping, barely healed burn scars; an uneven, monstrous terrain.  
  
If he had not laughed in some time, there was a good reason for it.  
  
“Father wishes me to marry, such as Cersei,” Jaime said to Tyrion.  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“I keep expecting Robert to offer me a white cloak. A fools thought. He pardoned me for being apart of Aery's Kingsguard, the same as the others knights. Yet..”  
  
“He does not welcome you into his own. Mayhaps our dear father asked that of him.”  
  
 _I do not doubt it. But that would have compelled Robert to do the opposite, just as it had the last king._  There was only one other reason Robert did not offer it; “He doubts my finesse, it would seem.” That irked Jaime, more than he could say. There were only fifteen survivors from the burning of King's Landing, he was one of them. It wasn't because he was  _lucky_. Not because he ditched early, knowing what would happen – he tried, he did, but that was the past. A guilt for another time and another problem. Jaime was stronger, smarter, faster than the rest. He survived because he was better.. so why does it seem everyone was treating as though him surviving had somehow made him the weakest?  
  
From the moment he woke in a maester's healing hands, his lord father had told him the war was over. There were things to plan, alliances to be made – and the word  _wedding_  was used more than once. Heir, he was his father's heir, and Cersei was for the king. A king whose Kingsguard would not offer Jaime his hassle free, purely sword-related life.  
  
“What are your options?” Tyrion asked, watching a wench pour him another glass of Arbor. His lips smacked once he sampled the rich red fluid and he offered it to his brother, who refused the cup with a curt shake. “I shall tell you of which I approve.”  
  
Jaime's smile was wiry; he drew his ravished hand over his jaw, feeling the hairless flesh and hummed amusedly. “There are no options.”  
  
“None? At all? I heard the Tullys still had a daughter to offer that's not to go to the Starks.”  
  
 _Lysa,_  Jaime knew. Tywin had tried that match already. “She is promised to Jon Arryn. I thought you were in on all the latest gossip.”  
  
“Not the right gossip, it would seem. Tell me. Who is the lucky maid?”  
  
“A straggling daughter of Evenfall Hall. Brienne, the Maid of Tarth. I have not met her.” At that Jaime raised his head and gazed about the hall; he could not pin-point anyone among the feast, but it made him feel strange knowing out there sat his waiting wife.  
  
 _My wife, what a strange title._  
  
Tyrion was amused. “I have heard of her.”  
  
“I have, too. They say she is a sow in a dress.”  
  
“With freckles and no teats.” There was a pause, wherein Tyrion examined his brother's face closely. “Are you disappointed? You do not look it.”  
  
He shrugged in response, then instantly regretted it at the uproar of pain on his back. “Let my wife be a sow, I am pretty enough for the both of us.”  
  
 _Besides,_  he thought,  _she will have to endure my horrendous body as well._  
  
It was not a joyous deal for anyone.

* * *

  
  
It was not until later that night, when the feast was winding down and the people were wandering off into the cool night, clutching hands, or stumbling into their rooms, muttering proper goodbyes, that Jaime got to meet his betrothed. No one lied. She  _was_  ugly. Fidgeting in her dress, the Maid of Tarth had managed to greet Tywin Lannister along with her lord father. Jaime stepped up when he was expected, took her hand and lowered himself carefully to kiss it.  
  
Brienne did not flinch away from the withered-skinned, red stained fingers, and she met his gaze.  
  
She met his gaze every time. Those calm blue eyes. There were not many words she shared, but whenever someone called for her attention, she gave it, if not grudgingly. Jaime had to be careful when Cersei came over to greet her; he was close to sharing that private smirk with his twin, behind everyone's backs, and laughing out loud when Cersei took Brienne's hand and spoke something borderline insult. Then he remembered the feel of Cersei's small hands in his own, the twist of her face covered by disgust, the way they pushed him hard in the chest and told him she would be sick.  
  
Brienne, however, met his gaze. His  _eyes._  
  
Never once did she glance at his neck or the burns crawling their way up his arms.  
  
In fact, she acted almost uninterested in him as a whole. Shy, withdrawn and hunched in her wide shoulders, the broad homely face set into a mask of politeness that did not extend any further than that. His betrothed could do not else but nod when she was expected and mutter quiet words that made people lean in to catch – but more often than not, people did not care enough to hear her words and dismissed them, and her, as dim.  
  
 _Dim, ugly, and painfully, obediently dull._  
  
Jaime did not have high hopes for his own wedding, nor future.


	2. The Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to speak to you about the characters for a quick moment, and if you have no interest in that, I have decided to put the note at the end for those who care. Feel free to skip down there now, before the chapter, or wait until after. Your choice. Thank you for reading.

He was alight. A torch held tall and staggering.  
  
The mane of golden hair about his head curled into spindles of dust, gripped in his shaking hands that tore at the tresses in frustrated agony. About him there was the moaning city, the configuration of the heat  _cracking_  stone. Withering away hundreds, perhaps thousands of the king's own people. Wild fire spread so easily through the close-built, sloped rows of King's Landing; surfaces were sparked by mere touches by whisks of movement, flaring and catching and dancing a dangerous dance of destruction. He was alight, standing on the far battlements. The lion tore at the clasp at his throat, too hurriedly, but the thin red scratches his nails left imprinted at the hollow of his throat were nothing compared to the unseen fingers of the flames hooked through him, broiling the metal of his armor, searing across cloth and white cloak, sinking passed flesh and nerve and sizzling against his blood, clawing fervently at him, pulling Jaime downward...  
  
Even where he stood, well away from King's Landing, Jaime could remember. There was a torch on the wall behind the Maid of Tarth's head as they stood there in the sept. It distracted him more than he would ever admit; most of his words were practiced and even, and Lady Tarth's were tighter – as if murmured around a throat closed over – but none the less  _spoken._  That was all that matter. They were getting married. The movements it took to sweep a crimson cloak of a Lannister around her broad shoulders seemed infinite. Jaime fumbled – there was still some impairment in his right hand, so consumed it had been, but it was not useless.. only that the damned golden, lion-headed clasp would not fasten.. and two fingers were trembling in their effort to be under his control..  
  
Brienne met his narrowed gaze with calm eyes. In a simple, meek press of her lips, her own hand lifted, brushed his fingers aside firmly, but gently, and fixed the clasp at the hollow of her throat. Annoyed, Jaime turned immediately from her to face the gathering of people about.  
  
From there the wedding was a fast procedure. Jaime had no intentions of upholding all that Robert and Cersei's matrimony had and did not attempt to do so. There was a small feast, with dancing and chatter; plenty enough to please Tywin's and his bannermen's wants. Because the event was much more secluded to the king's own, there seemed to be a warmer, more intimate atmosphere to the event. Despite the smell of crushed cloves and spiced Arbor swelling in the air, Lady Tarth rarely smiled. Jaime smiled plenty, though no thanks to the room, and only when he was not tracking an eye on his lord father or glancing at his new wife with a mixture of emotions.  
  
There was a tangle of things in his thoughts. More and more Jaime felt the tug of that one unfortunate night stronger than anything else in his life. It was as if he'd not lived before that moment and was only a ghost of his former self thereafter.   
  
But, more importantly, Cersei had not come to the wedding.  
  
 _Robert must be keeping her pinned well,_  Jaime thought. Part of him was him. Adoring of his twin, his half. He would do anything she asked for, and he would not question the deed – Jaime was well used to that. He was good at that, killing people for Cersei, f***ing Cersei, listening to Cersei..  
  
“I will be a good husband to you,” he murmured over the rim of his wine cup, and he meant that. Lady Tarth had lifted her head from where she sat beside him and there was a brief flash of stubborn  _something,_  before she dipped her head in silent assent.   
  
“And I shall serve you as a wife properly.”  
  
The other part of him, was wrong. Not him. It was stung; Cersei's gagging was freshly ringing in his memory. He'd been attempting to take her for the first time in months upon the eve of his recovery. “I'll be sick,” she told him, recoiling from the frayed rifts of skin that was his right arm. “I am sorry.” An afterthought. Those emerald eyes locked in his, her hand caressed his cheek – an untouched cheek – and she kissed him... Jaime surged against her, gripped at her skirts, ignored her protests. It'd been too long. He wanted her worse than he'd ever thought before. The soft flesh of breasts and pale arms promised him something else to dream of rather than wild fire. But the moment Cersei's elbow slipped down his upper back, fingers in his too short hair, she thrust two hands to his chest.  
  
He'd staggered. She'd fled.  
  
Nothing else seemed to make sense. Everything that made Jaime Lannister himself had been stripped away in a matter of days. The white cloak of the Kingsguard had been taken from him by Robert Baratheon just as much as Aery's had taken it from him (the Targaryen's house champion did a fine job of that). That ancient order he'd known since he was fifteen, gone – those days of nothing but tourneys, his sister's touches, and Westerosi envy. No one envied a man who could only curl three fingers on his sword hand. A hand that made him,  _him_. Cersei wasn't completely gone.. He would not accept that. Just because they were married to others, he knew that she would not forget. They were made for each other. Twins. They shared a womb. They shared the same flesh and blood, no matter what his looked like.  
  
Eventually, Robert's noose on her would loosen. There would be chances, then.  
  
In that mean time, he had a wife.  
  
Jaime would be a good husband to her. Not a vow; those were tedious things, that he was not well at keeping. It was a simple fact. He would not be cruel to her. There wouldn't be any angry fists or words in their union. He could be a good husband, if he could not be a good knight, nor brother, nor son.  
  


* * *

  
  
Brienne held her breath, woozy. The men had stripped away her clothes with no gentleness that they may have given to a maid shorter and thinner than she, who had a faint smile and delicate fingers in place of her wide shoulders and thick waist. They had pulled her along – she remembered that one had a strong hold on her wrist, tugging, and another wrapped a heavy and warm arm about her neck, urging forward – all the rest pulled at her clothes. They said things about her hair, her arms, the muscles, her teeth. Upon entering the bed chamber, their words were blows. Her hands raised to her chest and covered her small breasts, and she stumbled over her legs to keep standing. Their jeering laughter rang in her ears.  
  
Now, she stood, the stone cold beneath her feet.  
  
She waited for her lord husband to come.  
  
Her heart twisted around itself, waiting.  
  
There was not much to make of her new union. Not much she was  _allowed_  to say. There was, of course, the obvious,  _she'd become a Lannister today._  Married to the queen's brother and her twin, the son of Tywin Lannister, the heir to Casterly Rock. A big man more in the shadow he cast than his body, but still, inevitably, Brienne thought of his face. It was sweet, handsome, golden. Despite the burns, Jaime would always be easier to look upon than the Hound. A face that was so different from hers – broad and freckled and homely as it was – and she tugged loose the dyed red blankets of their marriage bed, wrapped it around her nakedness and sat determinedly on the ledge of the bed.  
  
 _He'd promised me to be a good husband,_  she thought to herself. It was strange to hear it, but surprisingly, relieving. There was no way to know what kind of man Jaime was, since he came so tangled in rumors and jealous mutters and true murmurs. He could have been anything; Brienne was expecting an arrogant, jeering man who would laugh at her every chance he got, poke and prob and throw her to the wolves just in his amusement. What she found was different.  
  
What she found was not Jaime Lannister.  
  
There were rumors about that. About the way he'd changed, that look in his face, the way he watched fires whenever they happened to be in the room with him; torches, hearths, fire pits.  _Does he do it consciously or just on instinct?_  It was not a question for her to ask.  
  
There was a resounding echo of voices coming from the hall. Women's laughter, tittering and shrill. Jaime's name sounded more than once. A tightness twisted in Brienne's belly. She recalled all her septa's words; she would have to please him, seal the union, give him children. Losing her maidenhead would hurt, she knew, had accepted that. And so when Jaime was thrown into the room, shoved sharply as she was, stumbling to keep level footing, Brienne rose from the bed.  
  
“Husband,” she said, in a quiet mutter, meaning for it to sound solid.  
  
Jaime glanced up. He still have his shirt on, which she thought was odd, but she spoke nothing of it.   
  
“Wife,” he responded, a twitch of his lips. “Have you waited long? I apologize, the men seemed to want to tell me what awaited me here before those ladies got their hands on me.”  
  
“Not long.” Brienne's throat swelled sharply at the thought of what they told him. No more words came. If she could not speak, then she met his gaze, because one could communicate that way, at least, only to say  _continue._  She wanted to get the union of their bodies over with, wanted to pull on trousers and a shirt rather than a dress afterward, wanted a sword in her hand as soon as she rid herself of the shadowed, crimson-soaked chamber.  
  
Jaime didn't seem to understand her unspoken permission or urgency. He fingered the collar of his shirt, stalled for a moment and drew his eyes over to the embers of the fireplace that made the room stuffy. Brienne watched his face, watched it shift, and she took a step forward if only to reassert her presence.   
  
Jaime turned his eyes to regard her. “They call you the Maid of Tarth,” he said.  
  
Brienne's face reddened. “I am.” She opened her mouth to tumble out more words, telling him she does not know what to do, but if he just told her – if he gave some sign –  
  
“Have you ever been kissed?”  
  
“No.. no, ser.” Jaime frowned. Brienne thought he looked displeased, at her, for that. She needed more of an explanation; “I am not often sought out for kisses.” There was no self pity in that, no bitterness, nothing but simple acknowledgment – maybe even an edge of  _you know that_  directed at him.  
  
“Then kiss your husband.” It was his left hand he motioned with, she noted that, pressed her lips together and took a small step forward – it was her duty, after all. That was what her septa told her; a woman's life was just as laced in duty as it was for men. They had honor, just a different sort than Brienne dreamed about.  
  
One small step after another, she finally reached him; he smelt nothing of wine, as her father did, and he didn't smell of sweat and musk like the squires in the yard she'd trained with as a girl, Jaime didn't smell of the salt of home, but there was a gentleness that ghosted momentarily on his face as she hovered near. There was a different facet of green for every angle his eyes moved; she watched that, because she did not want to see the grimace that might show through his tugging lips, or if he closed his eyes, thinking of other women.  
  
His eyes didn't close. He smelt of boiled leather and sword polish, and a cloy taste of honey and milk greeted her lips when she leaned in to lay her mouth to his. They were of height, Jaime teetering toward taller; most men looked up to her. Brienne's first kiss was short, chaste and when she drew back, eyes still refusing to move from his, Jaime hummed a small sound.  
  
“Can I show you how to really kiss someone?”  
  
The fact that he asked surprised Brienne, and she jerked her chin in assent.  
  
Jaime started to raise his right hand, stopped, dropped it and his left hand – untouched – pressed into the side of her face, fingers resting at the nape of her neck, a thumb over her cheek. “You want leverage,” he said, matter-of-fact, a little jape in his tone. “That way you don't tumble over or if they're startled, when they jerk back, they won't disrupt the kiss.”  
  
His breath was close, mingling with hers – she noticed how heavily she was breathing, self-consciously and tried to force it calm, hissing air in her lungs slow. The fingers on her neck, shifted and trilled downward in a strum and she shuddered. Jaime's eye closed momentarily; he hovered, there was a pause. Brienne wondered who he was imagining in her place. There must be a whole string of lovers a man like him took.  
  
Wrapped around her, the blankets were still there, clutched to the side of her breasts with her hands, and Jaime wore a shirt and his undershorts. She tried not to stare at them, to see, to check, if her duty was being filled, would be filled – but it would be, she knew, it had to be.  
  
“And..” Jaime continued, some moments later, reopening his eyes, sighing. “And you want to turn your face.” He titled his head slightly, to aline with her. “I don't want to catch your nose in my eye, wife.”  
  
 _Wife_ , she thought. She should not have called him husband.  
  
Finally, his right hand moved. She saw it out the corner of her eyes as it raised, slowly, and the ravished fingers touched the back of her hand lightly, where it held the blankets. Brienne stilled. “Your hand,” Jaime started, dropping his gaze. His fingers curled underneath her palm and pulled it from the grasp it held. He guided the hand upward and brought it to the scruff of hair on the back of his head; he used his fingers to sift hers into the tresses. “Grip it,” and she did. “Use it to angle my face, into yours, to match where yours goes.”  
  
 _Why is a kiss so complicated,_  she wanted to ask. Kissing had more steps than swordplay seemed to have. And if this was so specific, how would she ever learn to properly do her duty beneath the sheets? Certainly he wouldn't have the patience for a slow woman like her – her septa had made it clear that men would not have that.  
  
If anything, Brienne was stubborn enough to complete the task that she would listen, would take the advice.. gripped his hair as he wanted and angled his face into hers, and Jaime drew her in by the hold he had on her neck.  
  
The kiss was different. Was slicker and warmer, was not chaste. Breathing was hard when her mouth was flush into his and even more, when his tongue grazed along the ridge of her lips, and he slid the wetness that was his mouth to the side slightly, missing her lips. Her fingers curled tighter in his hair, refocused his lips and that time Jaime's tongue jarred her own.  
  
She drew back red-faced and panting.  
  
Jaime was smirking. “You need more practice. But I am quite well at kissing, and I'm a generous husband.” He drew away from her slightly, but only so that when he guided her with his steps toward the bed, he did not trip on the sheets about her legs. “Come, practice.”  
  
“Kissing?” Brienne asked. Then, remembering the way he called her wife, added, “Husband.”  
  
“Did you have somewhere else to be, wife?”  
  
“No.” Blunt, honest. Her eyes did not stray from his face; Jaime was too good at lying, she decided, he hid his facial expressions well, but she also began to wonder if Jaime cared, if he cared enough to lie and hide things. If that were so, then there seemed to be no japing to his request. “Wouldn't you rather..”  
  
“Force myself on you and watch your displeasure as you writhe beneath me? No, I suspect I do not.”   
  
His tone was dismissive.  
  
“But you won't be forcing,” Brienne insisted. “I am your wife. I want..” she faltered, and allowed her hand to slip from his hair and tug at the laces of his shirt, “I am willing. Every maid feels the pain. My septa..”  
  
Jaime caught her hand swiftly, and pulled it away from his shirt. “I want that on.”  
  
Brienne reddened and tried to breathe, tried to remind herself of her duty and that she was doing her duty and he was the one who was disobeying his duty – which frustrated her a little, confused her, made her wonder if she was doing something wrong – and she looked at her wrist in his hand, the scarred hand. The rivulets of red slithered up his arms until it was buried beneath the fabric. They were thicker at the biceps, spreading – it dawned on her that there may have been worse damage she'd not thought about.  
  
“Does it pain you?” she whispered. “Is that why you do not wish to bed..”  
  
He was frustrated now, she could see the annoyance in his face, directed at her. “There is no pain. I can hardly feel those pieces of me. I only wish to kiss my wife, do you deny me that?”  
  
And so she didn't. Brienne locked up all her pestering questions – she wished she had not blurted the other ones, her septa warned her how frustrated men would get with her – and she allowed Jaime to pull her to the bed and he lay his left hand on her face, or neck, and pulled the head achingly tight pins from her thin, lackluster hair. They kissed. She had not known there were so many different ways to kiss someone. Jaime seemed to know them all, coached her in them, used his tongue and teeth and both lips with purpose, and more than once pulled her hand back to his hair, or curled her fingers into his shirt – but that shirt remained, did not move. His right hand was rarely used, and when it was, moved hesitant.  
  
 _He hates his body,_  she guessed.  
  
“I don't mind.” It was the first sentence she'd spoken in hours and her lips were swollen, her mouth seemed to taste like his now, and the hand in his hair loosened its clutch, realizing she was dragging her fingernails over his scalp.  
  
“Don't mind what?” Jaime's lips moved to her jawline – that was a way of kissing someone, too. Using the strength of your mouth to draw red welts on the neck and underneath the ear, the light rigid of teeth over raw and worked skin. He had not let her touch the right side of his neck, where the crimson tear trickled from his jaw, but his left was clumsily tried at.  
  
“I don't mind the burns.”  
  
He stalled in his movements, sighed – it was frustration and annoyance again – and he drew back to gaze at her face, steadily. “I know.”  
  
 _Then take off your shirt,_  she wanted to challenge, then remembered better. She should be relieved; it was, after all, supposed to be unpleasant for her. Her bridal nerves had been buried in duty and the words of her septa, but stalling the act brought them out to war with her uncertainty. The sureness of his gaze hindered her. Perhaps she had guessed it wrong.  _He hates my body,_  she thought. Suddenly the tangle of her legs on the bed seemed awkward, her feet too big, twisted in the sheets, the swell of her teats too small. He had not unbarred her of her coverage, had done nothing but look into her eyes – does not see her broad face, closes his eyes when he dips to her neck.  
  
She wanted to sink further in the feather bed, through the stone floor, and disappear. Wanted to turn away from him and call him  _husband_  and ignore him. Refuse him in the way he had stalled bedding her. But she shouldn't. The hurt was familiar. It was not the first time someone rejected her, and she was not going to be childish about it. She may be slow, and ugly, but not immature.  
  
If anything, Brienne's face reddened further than the breathless flush, her lips pressed together to hold back the hurt. Jaime watched, noted the hurt anyway and realized she must of taken his actions wrong. “It is not you.”  
  
Brienne turned her face aside, sighed.  _It would be a good husband not to play games,_  she thought,  _to tell the truth to each other, to not be fake and pretend._  
  
“Yes, my lord.”  
  
“It is not you,” Jaime repeated. “I am sorry if I led you to believe that.” He raised his right hand, stuttered, then continued, laying the fingers against her jaw and forcing her to face him again.  
  
He looked sincere, and the apology sounded it, too. Brienne observed his face, searching for a flaw. The small finger of a burn, the only one that got so close to his face jumped out at her, but it did not bug her, did not distract from him. It was like one insignificant freckle, in comparison to her hundreds.  
  
“What do I tell them if they see I am still a maid after tonight?” she asked him.  
  
“Tell a lie,” he said. Then smiled, a flitting spread of his mouth that was amused. “But you are awful at that. I can already see. You can't lie and stumble when you tell truth. And your eyes are too honest...” Jaime trailed off and forked his fingers up her face and through her hair behind her ear. He paused with a handful of the straw in his palm, rubbing the strands between his fingers. “I used to have finer hair than you, wife.”  
  
“ _You_  are finer than me, husband,” the words fell out, bluntly. More than she hoped and she resisted a wince. But it was true, she could not ignore the fact, if she wanted honesty, she must be honest. Proper ladies don't lie; at least, that was what was taught, though hardly practiced – if it were practiced, she would had at least excelled in that category.  
  
Jaime laughed. “Finer, perhaps, in the face. Your eyes are finer than mine, I confess, and you have an admirable code of conduct. I fear that my lord father will give orders that I will ignore and you shall hammer into your mind, eventually dragging me into it. Or at least, annoying me until I find something to do about it.”  
  
 _He is already thinking about the future,_  she thought.  _I have not even thought beyond this night._  The prospect of her life to come seemed miserable, muddled by her determination not to disgrace the Lannister name, to be the Lady of Casterly Rock and do her duty. There were no swords in her future, it seemed, not until she'd found someway to sidle off, or when her husband was away. But perhaps she could tell him – the thought was fleeting, a hopeful thought of a young girl freshly married, a maiden true – and Brienne knew he would not like the idea, would laugh at her as the others, would want to muffle her ungainly desire that added insult to injury to her homely appearance.  
  
And the future, of course, made her think of children.  _Children._  Lannister children. Heirs to the Lannister name and to Casterly Rock. Kids who would one day be known for their paying of debts and would fill the world in the place of the current Lannister children; Tyrion, Jaime, and Cersei. For one moment, she pitied her children – her duty drowned the feeling.  
  
That sentence he said was so full of turns and contradictions. He called himself finer, complimented her, then to some extent accused her of being annoying, or prude. Brienne could not find a reply, was bad at glib, and had never thought her marriage would consist of so much pillow talk.  
  
Jaime used her hair to draw her toward him again. That time Brienne put her hand at the nape of the neck. That time she felt the frayed skin beneath her fingers, uneven and like any other scab she'd had from the training yard. Either he did not realize it, or forgot to care, or finally gave into her stubborn insistent to the bedding of each other tonight – her lying  _was_  terrible.  
  
Eventually, his fingertips were a whisper on the top of the sheet, gliding over her side. A thumb inched toward her breasts, traced circles over and around. She felt heat pool in her skin, her throat, her center. She moved her mouth to the neck, the skin salty, the kissing she never knew was sloppy. He laughed at her for that. Muttered something she didn't catch and a knee parted her thighs in one, swift movement. Brienne stilled and allowed herself to be rolled onto, the weight of him barely felt.  
  
After an estranging moment where Jaime wrestled the sheets from between them, fingers, strong and sure and not entirely full of duty, were there, the whole of his palm cupped against her. He met her eyes from above. His mouth found hers, and his hand against the petals of her sex pinned her more than his body could. The right hand at her breast rubbed the skin into a delicious rawness.   
  
“It won't hurt long,” he promised her, in a breath. The undershorts were discarded, his flesh burned hotly against her hip bone, but he paused for a moment, didn't enter her, kissed her lips, the side of her lips, a cheek.   
  
He said her name, barely, maybe. She couldn't be sure. Like a reminder.  _Brienne. Wife._  He said wife. In place of who, of what? And unbidden, she heard the remarks, the hardly whispered, the barely breathing rumors, the wisps of snark, infected in jealousy and uncertainty and the only proof an unusual closeness... unbidden, she considered, perhaps, the words could have been a different name, could have been  _sister. Cersei._  An awful thought, to be thinking the moment her maidenhead shot a sharpness through her.  
  
Brienne gripped his shirt, still on, hanging loosely from his stomach. Jaime stopped, watched her face, didn't see the thoughts in her head – for that she was grateful. He said her name again, that time it was Brienne, for certain. He groaned it out, as stone against broken shards of glass.  
  
The more he moved, the better it felt. His hand was still there, causing sharp flares of pleasure that was divergent from the pain. She watched him, his face. His cheeks-nose-lips-eyes. Underneath the dim light of the weak embers illuminating the room, his skin seemed golden hued. Pale lashes rested against the tops of his cheekbones as he robe above her. The nose was strong and straight. It sloped down to a perfect point at the top of his mouth, which was open just slightly, to let in his guttering breaths.  
  
Brienne reached up a hand as she was taught and gripped the hair and brought that mouth to hers. Jaime complied, seemed invested in the movements of his hips. Every time she rose up to meet him; duty overrided the discomfort, the sound of his pleasure niggled her stomach into an uncomfortable place, made her thighs feel weak.  
  
When it was over, she felt hot and bothered and exhausted and he looked it. But when she shifted beneath him, meaning to sleep, Jaime caught her shoulder, and overlooked her face. “I'll be a good husband to you.” It sounded more as though he was convincing himself rather than her.  
  
All Brienne could think about was the unbidden thought, those rumors. They were horrible, dishonorable, wicked. They hurled bleak spots onto her lord husband's reputation. Shamed the Lannister name. Were frivolous to listen to, let alone believe. But some piece of her was still.. was still that woman piece. A possessive, insecure feeling swelled in her chest at his words – she remembered the kisses, the feel of his hand at the nape of her neck, all the words he had not said or the japes he did not join in during the wedding – he was a good husband. But an honest and faithful one?  
  
“Don't lie to me,” she told him, on principle. Her eyes calm and unwavering on his. “That is all I want.”  
  
There was a curl of his mouth. “My brother says people ask for honesty and rarely like it when they receive it. You will not resent me for the truth, wife?”  
  
“I honor the truth, husband,” it was a knightly thing to say, she thought, was proud of it. The first coherent thing she manged to say without fumbling or wanting to turn red from head to toe.  
  
That amused Jaime. As he rolled off of her and onto the bed, he was chuckling. “Then no one has ever told you the truth before.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, when you read, they are different. Don't be shocked, it's an AU and certainly they are not the same people. Brienne is more naive, her rock-hard beliefs are almost there, but they are still rounded on the edges, aren't something she will shout out on - not yet, at least. She is still half a girl, in my head; if she was half a girl by the time Catelyn took her in, then in this fic - though thanks to my age changes, she's been through a war (Robert's Rebellion, Tarth went untouched) - she is still young, inexperienced: Brienne accepts that, grudgingly.
> 
> On the other hand, Jaime is a whole mess, per my doing. He is less confident, less arrogant. More prone to frustration because he is used to being that way, then he realizes he cannot back them up. Jaime does what Cersei tells him - is what he's been trained to do since he was young. So now that she is disgusted with his body, I expect he's thinking, he's supposed to be too, while he wants to resent her for it, he loves her.. so he thinks maybe she's right to resent it - but then again he's Jaime, he shrugs off heavy things. Does not like to remember. Jaime is a mess; wants what he can't have, and has no idea what he's supposed to be doing anymore (Cersei was his guide and left him for a king - or did she?)
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope this helped you some or you found it interesting/useful.


	3. Brienne

It started as a passing comment. The words grew brighter, and constant, and  _physical_  in a way that should be impossible. Jaime hears the whispers that fly from mouth to ear at the rate of a hummingbird's heartbeat. There are different details at every breath of wind, all of murder, about a choking that bites, of nails clawing at ones throat in a desperation which no one person should feel.  
  
Or there is the other tale. A rumor of a spiteful Targaryen supporter. Perhaps a man of the Kingsguard, bleeding and limping...  _crawling_  up the steps, one at a time, a blade clutched in his fist.  _No, a glass shard,_  another man claims, from a shattered lantern that'd guided him up the tower in the middle of the night. One hand reaching up and in to tear her out of the dark by her glorious black hair, a blade kissing her throat. Moon-bright opals ringing the rim of a golden cup that the wolf brought to her lips. The  _thud_  of a falling aristocrat. An undiscovered body that grew bitter across Joy's floor. An electricity of bitterness in the blood that pooled underneath her head; the last straw that forbid Robert his true victory. And none of that really mattered, the details, it all spiraled downward to one point.   
  
That one night, happened. Someone did it, somehow.  
  
Lyanna Stark would not come home from Dorne.  
  
It shouldn't matter, really. Robert was Cersei's. Ned Stark returned home without so much as lingering in the south, nor stopping in the new King's Landing to counsel his friend. No one spoke of it, really. Only in whispers. None thought to actually  _think_  about it. But.. Jaime couldn't not consider it.  
  
It was, after all,  _her_ , who had sprung the war into motion.  
  
He never thought of the woman, before. There were few people of the opposite gender that caught his attention, since most of them weren't his sister. Lyanna Stark was told to have a wild beauty. Evident enough in the way that her face had stung Rhaegar into action. Well loved, too. The girl had to be well loved for all those fathers and sons to come blindly to the Red Keep. They died at her cost and honor and they also died to spark the fire of Robert's Rebellion. Only, all Jaime could think about, was how unsavory it must be to Robert, to hear these whispers.  
  
And, inevitably, he worried over Cersei. She was just as far away from him as she was before the war. The difference was that he was in Casterly Rock and she was in King's Landing. He wondered how she took the man's crushed heart. Not kindly, if he knew his twin – which he did. In her body and face, she had grace, perhaps even in her words, when it pleased her, but Cersei had little, if no, grace when it came to matters of the heart. Even less so, a man who had allowed himself to be so sensitive. Jaime mused momentarily, seeing that big, hulking shape of a man blubbering in his marriage bed and Cersei turning over, her back to him, disgust twisted into that perfect face.. and Jaime opened his eyes, and could still see it. There, in front of him, directed at  _him._  
  
He shook himself.  
  
Lyanna. He was thinking about that woman. He never truly met her. When he tries to picture her in his mind it comes up as Ned Stark's eyes and a blue winter rose and a direwolf. Nothing to grasp. At that familiar thought, Jaime's right hand itched. He looked down at the appendage, licked with fire, and he clenched the fingers. Only his thumb, pinky, and ring finger curled. The other two twitched feebly, more scar tissue than proper flesh.  
  
The maester had told him if the wound had festered, they would have taken the entire hand.  
  
The thought still made Jaime's face turn cold. They would not take his hand. Not that maester, not an infection, and certainly not Aerys. King's Landing and all those lives, hundreds of them, had already been taken, and Jaime didn't fear death by festering, not if it meant a hand. His sword hand. Eventually, it became clear the burns would heal and the limb was his to do with – Jaime had only tried to spar once or twice with it and only with a beam of wood or a tree.. each attempt clumsy and his grip far too weak to properly play out the maneuvers he knew so well.  
  
Which, once more, Jaime found himself considering the reason it was that way.  
  
Lyanna, was at the heart of that. He wouldn't blame her outright (he honestly did not feel anything for that girl). Nor the war. Not even the Baratheons, or Ned Stark, or the gods. They weren't to blame. It was painfully obvious where the blame lay.  
  
He shouldn't of hesitated.  
  
Aerys was paranoid, he knew that. How could he have forgotten?  
  
The sharp pains of his fists beating uselessly against the doors were a pulse of a memory on his skin. Smoke, acrid and thick, curled in his nose and cantered down his throat, swelled in his lungs. He'd been coughing, tearing, gagging, by the time Elia came for him.  
  
_Elia,_  Jaime thought. Another woman to consider.  
  
“My lord? Are you listening, at all?”  
  
“No, not really. But, please, continue. It looked like you wanted to talk.”  
  
The man from House Kenning soured in the face. “I wish to speak with Tywin.”  
  
“He's out. I'm here in his place,” Jaime said, unnecessarily. He'd been taking up all the lordly duties of Casterly Rock since he had gotten married and had been doing nothing short of a lackluster attempt at the task. “Don't worry, it won't be much longer before I'm dismissed. I've planned well.”  
  
“Your father is merely trying to groom you,” the man said, in slight hesitation. He was older, yes, but he also knew that Jaime was his better. “My requests are simple ones.”  
  
“Simple enough for the real Lord of the Rock, I think. And he'll be sure to help you with them when he decides to stop playing these games with me.” Jaime sighed. He was tired of this one already. “Go and send in the next.” A pause, as he opened his eyes and the Kenning narrowed his. “Tell the others I would receive no more today, either.” Hesitation. “Now.” The sharpness in Jaime's voice roused the man and he lumbered away.  
  
Jaime watched him disappear from the chamber. There was no fire burning in the pit, but his eyes still turned there, thoughtfully. Most lords received those who need him in the high seat of the house, or within a hall, but those are too large, and they all pile in, noisy and smelling and impenitent. Upon taking up the duty, six weeks previously, Jaime had moved himself to the nearest solar, small and more intimate, where he could sit behind a desk and sip cider and not listen in comfort.  
  
The next man to come to him was someone less notable than the Kenning and equally ignored, if not more so. Jaime watched the man's lips move and in his head, he remembered Elia. They'd met as children, briefly, when her and her brother had been brought to the Rock in hopes of being married to the twins. The fact that he almost married that woman made him amused, if only a little – because Jaime thought of his real wife, then. In comparison, the ill-healthed, slight little Martell seemed.. strange, to Brienne of Tarth, strong and stubborn. Of which, Jaime thought that he was glad that Brienne was his wife. Much easier for him to deal with; the wench could take blows easier, than that Martell, most like. Especially considering how many Jaime could deliver in only one or two sentences.  
  
Jaime switched tracks. Now he was pondering those words Brienne had uttered to him on their wedding night. It was not the first time he had.  _Honesty,_  he thought,  _what a joke._  There was little else said between them aside formal greetings and good morrows and good nights. She was kind enough at night, offering him what he would have, as befit a proper wife. Very little did he take; he would reach out sometimes and snatch a kiss and perhaps a breast, but he could never motivate himself to the actual act of sex.  
  
_No sex, nor fighting,_  Jaime despaired.  _What has come of me?_  
  
He had a plan, of course, to fix that. Throughout the six weeks he'd been practicing the act of holding a sword. He merely had to rebuild the muscles in his hand, make the remaining ones strong enough to hold a sword without the ruined ones. Then he would graduate to yard training, mostly at night, where no one would like to happen upon him. He'll take a ward or squire, after he mastered the practice dummies, to train with, on the preface of mentoring. Part of him wanted to skip that step, but he remembered his own squiring days – as brief as they were – and decided he could find a boy, some boy that amused him and he liked well enough. Slowly, but surely, his right hand would be back.  
  
The sex, however. Cersei certainly would be eager to see him once she realized how unsatisfying Robert would be to her, despite his title and his victory and his stark appearance differences. Jaime was hopeful; she would be over the burns by then, would realize once more how deep their bond runs once she realizes that Robert could never stand comparison..  
  
Then he found himself jammed next to the honesty wish.  
  
He couldn't possibly tell the wife about Cersei. That would be bad. There was the option that he could simply tell her there are other women. Rather, another woman, only one. Someone he would not allow to dishonor her name. Certainly, that was good enough.  
  
_Especially for someone who honored the truth._  Jaime snorted aloud.  
  
The man scowled the whole time Jaime went through a discussion near identical to the one he had with the last hundred of men that had been through his solar. Likewise, the man was similarly dissatisfied and Jaime rose from his chair to escort this one out.  
  
By the time he sat again, he sighed and rubbed at his face and paused. He stared at his right hand, considered the way it felt against his own cheek. Even he disliked the rough feel, like a cat's tongue. He wondered how Brienne managed not to wince.  
  
“A hand, though,” Jaime told himself. “You still have your hand, and your life.” Elia and her children could not say the same. An unease panged in his stomach. Rhaenys, her small fingers twisted into his hair as she settled on his hip, and Elia's hand resting on his arm, her feet stumbling, her eyes frantic. Aegon, snuggled between Elia's arm and chest, wailing, giving them away. Jaime had wanted to clamp a hand over that babe's mouth,  _but Elia did, before I could and his cries died, just as well as the babe did._  
  
Jaime was late to dinner. It was not a surprise. Brienne was staring boredly at her platter, pushing the food around. As always, Tywin was no where to be seen. There was only a ward that sat at the table with the Tarth woman; he was a recent thing. It was not often Tywin took wards, especially not one from such a lowly family. Podrick Payne was quieter than Brienne, which made these meals seem exceedingly as though Jaime spoke to himself.  
  
“Wife,” he greeted her as he sat.  
  
Brienne tipped her head his way. “Husband.”  
  
The thrall serving Jaime a platter glanced between the two oddly, before scurrying away. Jaime pressed his lips together and took a bite from the salted pork. He raised a hand and motioned for wine. “Tart,” he said. “Not that sickly sweet Arbor stuff.”  
  
“At once, my lord.”  
  
He peered at Podrick. “How's the master-at-arms treating you?” Jaime asked the boy.  
  
Pod looked up, seemingly startled. “F-Fine, ser.”  
  
“Perhaps sometime we could have a go, no?”  
  
The boy nodded jerkily, looking uncertain.  
  
Jaime smiled, hoping that would put him at ease. “I'll name the day.”  
  
“Yes. S-ser.”  
  
Brienne had raised her head, when Jaime glanced her way, her eyes fumbled back to the table. That was odd. Usually she had no problems meeting his gaze. Jaime shrugged that off once his wine arrived and fell to the food.  
  
Afterward, despite his not so great effort, he could not get word with his father. He had two more cups of wine in the kitchens, watching the cooks move about, a particular one stirring the stew that broiled above a soft glow of orange embers. There were many sideways glances directed at him; he ignored all.  
  
Inside his bed chambers Brienne was already in the covers, turned on a side, eyes closed. At the sight of her in the bed, he felt himself stir to something, but as soon as his back hit the mattress, he was exhausted. A day of memories and duties and a lord's boring life; it was more tiring than swordplay.  
  


* * *

  
  
Brienne was always a light sleeper, drifting in and out of awareness as a night progressed. She had gotten into the habit of waking to hear Jaime's heavy breathing beside her, and she would relax, and reach out a finger or toe to touch him, knowing that things were well if he was there, and drift back into a deeper unconsciousness for a time.  
  
Jaime, however, seemed to lapse into deep sleep the instant he lay down, sleeping soundly the entire night through. That was his training, to grasp sleep when you could and not let it slip away. Brienne did not for an instant begrudge him his deep sleep. Those secret, brief moments when she would wake, and touch him, were precious to her, something of a reassurance, really.  
  
A reminder, that she was not dreaming her new life.  
  
Throughout the past six weeks, she'd learned nothing but stitching and sitting and the history of the Lannisters from the septas that were once Cersei's. They were used to Cersei, and though they found Brienne not quite so beautiful, they found her much kinder. Much gentler, despite her shape and size. That worked from both sides, because Brienne found herself liking these women – if only because they helped her, and spoke kind, and didn't find her dim when she took her time to answer questions.  
  
Those brief, delicious moments when she slipped away to the yard were another precious piece of her new life. It was always when Jaime was buried in his duties that she would go. The septas could be dismissed at her request, and she could lean over the half-wall between the sandy yard and the armory, the smell of sweat and boiled leather and coppery-metal stinging her nose. Podrick was always there, training, and she wanted to put in suggestions, that the master-at-arms did not, but couldn't.  
  
And she couldn't quite figure out what to do when she felt the man on the bed beside her twist into the blankets. She woke this night as she so often did, still half-dreaming. Brienne lingered over a sad thought of wanting to be able to train again with her own master-at-arms, while rolling slightly, meaning to reach out and lay a light hand on Jaime's shoulder. The instant her fingertips touched his skin, he turned sharply in his dream. A sound escaped him; more groan than mewl, but to her ears it was near a whimper.  
  
She sat up in an instant, and stared down at him in the cool, dark light.  
  
One of his hands clenched the sheets and his face turned one way, then the other. Sweat beaded through his shirt, on his chest and Brienne bit this inside of his lip. She thought for a moment, that she should wake him. That would be the kind thing to do. Then, she considered that he would not want that, that he would not want people to know Jaime Lannister is plagued by dream terrors, a mere boy, whimpering in his sleep. Not even his wife.  
  
Especially not his wife.  
  
Brienne made to lay again, on a shoulder, still watching him, but the instant she shifted Jaime flinched an arm and his lips moved, parted barely, as though speaking, and he rolled uneasily, twisting his torso.   
  
She stared. The blankets she held to her throat, in nervous fists, knuckles sliding against her neck. She waited, for something more. An invitation to comfort him, possibly. Brienne tried to conjure up what he might be dreaming of. King's Landing? Something from his childhood? Targaryen horrors?  
  
He lay still after a few long minutes. Secretly she was relieved and she rolled away and fell back asleep. The next morning, she made no mention. He left to his duties after giving her a good morning peck and a few lines of sarcasm that required no response. Brienne took her time to get up herself; her life seemed such a dull prospect. Two septas arrived to aid her into her dress. Brienne waved them away and insisted on dressing herself, she was capable.  
  
They both sat on the bed, relaxed and smiling faintly. “You are certainly easier to accommodate for,” said the older woman. Septa Jenica, brown hair silver-laced and few frown lines around the corner of her mouths, and undoubtedly the most bold and talkative of the three septas.  
  
_I would think,_  Brienne thought to herself. Any woman who takes three septas' attention certainly was high maintenance. She hummed her verbal response. That was a safe reply, she found, for most situations.  
  
The two women found their own conversation, and Brienne was relieved to be left out. She focused on tying the dress together and she looked about the room for a brush, to tame her tangled hair. Once located she sat on a chair before a polished silver-looking-glass. Then she sighed and left the room to find a chamberpot, the second time that morning.  
  
When she came back, the third septa was there – the one that seemed most keen on turning Brienne into the true Lady of the Rock. Septa York tutted at her. “Let me help you with that hair.” Brienne didn't object, she was awful at that stuff anyway. The pins were tight and made her head ache and they scraped her scalp, but the end results looked like a proper southern lady's hair style.  
  
From there, she attended breakfast. Podrick greeted her and she nodded back and the two sat in stiff silence, two empty seats between them. Tywin came down briefly and Brienne tried not to meet his gaze, but when she did he was smiling lightly. “You are looking lovely this morning, Lady Brienne.”  
  
His words were cool and expressionless. Brienne managed to mumble her thank you. Tywin disapproved of her quiet reply, told her to speak up better, and departed with a frown and sausages. No longer hungry, her stomach nauseous, Brienne dismissed herself.  
  
Septa Jenica tried to teach her new stitches. Hers were awkward and sloppy, despite her steady hand. None of them scolded her, but rather shrugged and tossed their own creations into her basket. “Useless skill anyway,” Septa Miskten, the youngest and plumpest of the lot. “It's not as though you make your own dresses, just pretty little pillows and squares.”  
  
Surprised slightly, at the way the two others nodded their agreement, a small smile touched Brienne's lips. She peeked at Miskten, and the woman – though the youngest, was certainly Brienne's elder by many years – smiled widely back. They stitched for hours; Brienne mostly sat and enjoyed their company, it was the first time in six weeks she'd found any sort of comfort.  
  
It was late afternoon, and Brienne was tugging at the tight fit of her bodice when Septa Jenica considered her with suspicious eyes. “That was your third bathroom break in the last five hours.”  
  
“I think I might have caught something,” Brienne admitted, dismissively. “My stomach has been out of sorts.”  
  
“And your breasts? Tender, yes?” Septa York asked knowingly.  
  
Brienne gave her a peculiar look. “How..” Then she noticed all their knowing expressions. She paled a bit. “But my flower is only..”  
  
“Late,” Jenica finished, smiling. “Don't look so panicked. This is good news.”  
  
“Yes,” Miskten insisted, leaning over and grasping Brienne's hands in her round ones. The woman smiled earnestly up at the wench. “We all have our own children, my lady. You do not need to be afraid, we'll be here to answer your questions and concerns. Septa York was a midwife for the twin's birth, did you know?”   
  
Septa York inclined her head at Brienne. “True. I have been with the Lannisters for a long while. The only birth that's gone astray under my watch was Tyrion's.” Then she seemed to realize that might not be the most comforting thing to say. “But you are far heartier than Lady Joanna ever was.”  
  
Truthfully, Brienne was more afraid of afterward the pregnancy than anything else. Otherwise, their words had helped, if only some, to know she would not be holed up in this giant fortress, pregnant and alone and lost. Miskten's congratulatory hug was solid and warm, even though Brienne's clumsy arms returned it too late. “Thank you,” she said, half puff of air and word.  
  
Pregnant. She was pregnant. And so soon. She'd thought she'd have time, to get used to the idea, to submit to the life of a proper woman, where the only war she would have was in the birthing chamber.   
  
A baby. She was going to have a baby. Jaime's baby. Lannister baby.  
  
She tried to familiarize the words in her head, but they didn't sink in. They felt wrong. Incorrect. When she dismissed the septas, she lay a hand on her stomach, still hard and muscled, and she couldn't seem to conjure up the actual physical quality of being pregnant.  
  
So she acted as though she was not.  
  
At her quiet insistence, the septa promised not to share the news to either Tywin or Jaime. “Eventually, they will know, my lady,” Septa York promised her.  
  
“And I will tell them before then.. I just..”  _want time._  
  
None of them took that from her.  
  
They did, however, talk to her about her trips down to the yard and the armory. She never touched, but the master-at-arms had told Tywin about seeing her there. Jaime found out the next day. She stopped short in her walk when she saw him leaning against the armory door-frame, arms crossed over his chest. “Fancy meeting you here, wife,” Jaime greeted her.  
  
“Husband.” An instinctive response.  
  
Her face reddened afterward and he looked about the sunny surroundings. “I hear you come here often. Is there something significant about this place?” Jaime cocked his head to the side slightly. “Do armories hold some special memory for you?”  
  
_Yes,_  she thought.  _Freedom._  Instead of that, Brienne stared at her hands, that resisted holding her stomach, as though she had something to hide there. It'd been three days since she had found out.  
  
Jaime took a step or two closer and Brienne straightened. His tone was only slightly taunting; “I thought we were supposed to be honest to each other.”  
  
Guilt blossomed in her mouth like weeds. She was the one who asked for an honest marriage, but would not tell him about his son or daughter to be. The unease crawled down her throat and closed it and she found no answer to speak. Jaime thought he wanted to know why she came to the yard, and she had more secrets than that.  
  
She wondered how many he had and would not share.  
  
That hardened her resolve, some.  
  
“Podrick,” she finally decided. “I like to check on his training. He is a sweet boy.” Partly true, the sentence, but since it came out too croaked and harsh, Jaime raised an eyebrow.  
  
“You're a terrible liar.”  
  
Brienne dove away from lies and toward the truth; “I thought you were at your duties.”  
  
“I was, unfortunately, but my wife requires more attention. Thank you, also, for the excuse to slip away. Perhaps you should do that more often, things that call me away.” He sighed and seemed to laugh a little before coming to her and resting a hand on her arm momentarily. “Your motive is of no matter. Do what you like,” he said, more serious, uncaring. “Just be more careful of my father. He's got a lot of ears and eyes around here.”  
  
Brienne nodded numbly, and Jaime moved to walk away. She caught his elbow gently. “Jaime.”  
  
He jumped at the sound of his name coming from her and turned his head, curious, cautious. “Wife?”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
That night, when he came into the bedchamber late, Brienne turned over to him, offering her mouth. He took it and she tried not to wince when his hands seemed to go rough on her breasts. When he seemed on the verge of turning away, Brienne would grip his hair and kiss him and move against him, encouraging. Somehow, she ended up on top, a place she found awkward and unattractive and that made her blush every time Jaime looked up at her. He grinned at that, a hand kneading a breast, the other clamped around her hip, guiding her movements.  
  
Once they were both spent, instead of rolling to her own side of the bed, Jaime wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into his chest. She was stiff and uncertain, but his lips at the nape of her neck were nice. Hours later, long into the night, her thighs sticky still, Brienne woke. She ventured out a toe and brushed his calf, and a shout, a scream of sorts, broke into the air.  
  
Brienne almost threw herself to her feet at the sound, rolling quickly, sitting dizzily at the edge of the mattress. Were they under attack? Were there assassins in the bedchamber? A hundred thoughts hit her in her state of lucidness, until she recalled the other night. Jaime was the one screaming. She took his shoulders and shook him.  
  
He was disoriented and pale and he continued to shout something, even when his eyes lulled open and his hands clumsily took hold of Brienne's shoulders. After a few blinks, and a shake more, Jaime took note to Brienne's searching face and his surroundings. The man seemed to sag in his skin, momentarily, dropping his face to her shoulder – she went still.  
  
As the thought of calm registered in her, her heart ceasing its painful beat, the door burst open, and the guards and even a servant or two, groggy themselves, staggered into the room, looking for danger. “My lord, there was screaming,” said one.  
  
Suddenly aware of her nakedness Brienne fumbled with the blankets to cover her breasts. Jaime straightened instantly, and ripped away the blankets he'd had to aid her, hand pressing the fabric hard over her collarbone. He sent the guards a scathing look. “Don't you know better than to saunter on into the room with a man and his wife?” he demanded of the guards, composed. “If you heard screaming, think first. Pause and listen and wonder, yes?”  
  
They nodded, wide-eyed and backed out of the room. One or two paused to scope the room, but left anyway, some red-faced, or glancing crudely at Brienne, who had turned scarlet at Jaime's words.  
  
Once they were gone, Jaime flopped back in his bed. Moments later, he cracked open an eye, regarding the wench. She had not moved from her place, hunched shouldered, upright and she could feel his stare on every piece of her. He would not want her to acknowledge what just happened, she thought. The trained part of her mind went in search of advice from her septa, as to know what to do in this situation, but there was no one who prepared her for a traumatized husband, broken and strange.  
  
But she knew a thing or two about comfort.  
  
“Are you well?” she simply asked.  
  
“Quite.”  
  
“Do you wish to speak of it?”  
  
Jaime looked fazed, if only momentarily. “No.”  
  
Her hand, timid, reached out and her eyes followed its movement. The fingers trailed softly down the river of a burn that marred his forearm. Jaime shuddered, but did not recoil. “You can tell me.” She wanted to know, really. She wanted to hear. If she could not have the life of a knight, than let her husband's experiences be her fill. Let her be the one he told, his secrets, the honest truth.  
  
Momentarily, the sixteen year old girl in Brienne, who was not struggling to rise to being the Lady of the Rock, thought of Renly Baratheon, whom she'd met at thirteen. He'd been her crush for the longest time, had given her respect that she could return. There was little of that kind Baratheon in Jaime.  
  
_Honesty, goes both ways._  
  
“I have news,” she murmured.  
  
“Be it something good.”  
  
_It isn't,_  she thought.  _Not to me._  
  
She took his right hand, scarred and broken into both of hers. Spreading the fingers carefully, and not daring to meet Jaime's eyes, she lay it against a breast, palm cupping the weight. Her fingers curled around the hand, while her head cast aside slightly, eyes straying to the chamber around them. “We're to have a baby.”  
  
Silence. Then, a thumb caught her chin and turned her face, so that Jaime could look at her. Instantly, she searched his expression, waiting for something. The only difference it showed was a slightly wider set to his eyes, a lack of amusement and his own searching of her face.  
  
“You are upset,” he said, not asked.  
  
“No.”  
  
“For someone who honors the truth, you lie far too much.”  
  
Reluctantly, Brienne gritted her teeth and said, “Yes.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
The tide could be turned. “Why were you screaming?”  
  
Jaime pursed his lips, considered her question and his hand at her chest fell away to brush the back of his knuckles over her abdomen. “Perhaps I'll tell you,” he said.  
  
Something tight swelled in Brienne; anticipation, nervousness, excitement. A little taste of victory, really. “Then I will tell you why I am upset.”  
  
“But not tonight. It is too early and I am too tired for this.” He flattened his hand over her stomach and slipped it around the side, using his arm to coax her back against the mattress. She went willingly and nodded an assent, before Jaime pressed a kiss to the side of her ear. “Sleep, Brienne.”  
  
She was almost certain that was the first time he'd ever said her name.


End file.
